


Tracing Plotlines

by QuixoticRobotics



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Autistic Orpheus, Happy Ending AU, idk we're deconstruction storytelling crap here today, just know its a, just lots of mental crap all around, or is it??????, ptsd orpheus, sequel to Loopholes kinda but like thats not super important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23136340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuixoticRobotics/pseuds/QuixoticRobotics
Summary: Orpheus lies awake and reflects on a story hes not sure he enjoys.
Kudos: 17





	Tracing Plotlines

It was dawn. You’d had trouble sleeping (you’d been having trouble sleeping lately. Sleep hadn’t given you this much trouble since you were a little kid). In the inhibition lowering haze of sleep deprivation, something you’d been avoiding had crept into your thoughts and lodged itself there. So you’d been forced to groggily think about the state of your life lately. 

The state of your life was fantastic, in theory.   
  
You always liked happy endings, but this one just didn’t sit right with you. Nothing about this story sat right with you, not really.   
  
Who even is the hero of this story? Let's suppose it's you. Now let's look at the cast of characters. There's the love interest. She’s strong, her moments of weakness are rare and well earned. Your moments of weakness are painfully long, drawn out for all these stupid little reasons. Anyone would dismiss this as contrived. They’d impatiently wait for you to do something brave, what awful pacing!    
  
But let's not be too hasty. What about Heroic deeds? You managed to fix, well, basically everything. You put the world back into tune. You reunited with your wife. Going up against death itself sounds pretty brave and cool on paper. But were you really a brave hero? Or could you just not cope with the possibility your actions hurt someone you care about.

Eurydice promises you aren’t to blame for what happened. But you insist neither is she. That's the thing with stories, blame can be neatly assigned and distributed. For some reason you like this more than the alternative. You and reality never got along particularly well. Why would someone who didn’t constantly have their head in the clouds even try what you did?

And nothing you did felt as grand as everyone makes it sound.    
  
You sang, yes. But you didn’t march into the underworld with words of revolution on your tongue. You were honestly terrified the entire time, you think the only reason you didn’t break down is because of how much you love making music. It’s lucky that happens to be the only thing you’re good at.    
  
You don’t want to think about the walk out. Look at you, a grown man, having to skip part of a story because it's too scary. You were going to break down in there. You can’t face thinking about it you sure as hell couldn't face being there. The only thing that kept this from being a tragedy was quick thinking on Eurydice’s part.

You wonder what your younger self would think of this story. The idea of him hearing an idealized version of what happened and loving it horrifies you. 

You think about how The Goddess of Spring was your  _ favorite  _ story as a kid, how you’d be inconsolable after Aunt Persephone left and could only be cheered up by Mr. Hermes reading you that story, so you could imagine Auntie happily reunited with a loving husband she was very glad to see. You wonder if she felt that same kind of horror, the horror of people expecting someone great and all you have to give them is a mess instead. 

That's the other main reason this ending was bad. Not only were the hero’s credentials iffy at best, but it felt like everything was happy except for you. Soon Eurydice would wake up. She’d remark how tired you looked, you’d give some excuse because she didn’t deserve to worry    
  
You know you had people you could turn to when things got tough. Eurydice, Mr. Hermes, Auntie (assuming she was in town). But you couldn’t make yourself feel better and everyone else had already dealt with enough problems. 

You feel Eurydice stir as she begins to wake up. You hope everyone else in the world enjoys their hard earned happy ending. Maybe soon you’ll be able to join in.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok but like one of the striking things about hadestown to me is how it got me thinking about HOW a story ends vs WHEN a story ends. Happy ending aus create this paradox where the characters have to forever cope with the horrors they faced and nobody really reflects on that enough I Am Just Saying. So I'm glad to finally explore that concept. 
> 
> This is set in the same happy ending au as my fic Loopholes. because thats my favorite take on these two dorks getting out alive.


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